Thomas Elias: GOP's new Hispanic outreach another futile exercise

8:05 PM,
Jan. 6, 2014

Written by

tom elias

Give the Republican Party credit: After drawing fewer than 23 percent of Latino votes in the last presidential election, the GOP will now spend $10 million nationally trying to build permanent ground organizations and "a year-round presence" in Latino neighborhoods around the nation.

But also recognize that this is strictly tokenism: You don't sway the nation's fastest-growing ethnic voting bloc by spending less on it than on many campaigns for a single seat in Congress.

You also don't win over Latinos simply by saying you're going to be hanging around their neighborhoods and pestering ...